Systems and methods for optimizing a set-top box to retrieve missed content

ABSTRACT

The systems and methods described herein optimize the retrieval of missed content by playing back cached content to enable tuners with limited capacity to retrieve the missed content. A content presentation system may receive, with a tuner, a transmission of content comprising media content and advertisements. The content presentation system may cache the advertisements. The content presentation system may determine whether an interruption during the transmission resulted in a missed portion of content and, in response, determine whether an advertisement upcoming at a time period in the transmission of content is cached. If the upcoming advertisement is cached, the content presentation system may play back the cached advertisement at the time period and release the tuner previously receiving the transmission of content to retrieve the missed portion of the content during the time period.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure is directed to using tuners to retrieve missedcontent and, more particularly, to systems and methods that use a tunerreceiving a transmission of content to retrieve a missed portion of thecontent by playing back a cached version of an advertisement in thetransmission.

BACKGROUND

Viewers of broadcast content often experience interruptions in thecontent due to factors such as signal loss, rain fade, power outages,etc. These interruptions can cause gaps in the content. This problemonly increases as content systems continually move to more mobilesystems and users increasingly consume content on mobile devices.

SUMMARY

In view of these problems, a system (e.g., a set-top box, mobile device,etc.) is described herein that features a novel technique for retrievingmissed content. The system may employ a number of tuners to convert adigital transmission into audio and/or video signals that are processedfurther to produce sounds and/or pictures. These tuners may be used toreceive both live transmission of content and non-live content that wasmissed earlier due to an interruption; however, the receiving capacityof the tuners is limited. If a user is engaging (e.g., to view a livetransmission of content) all available tuners, there is not anyadditional tuner capacity to also receive other content (e.g., contentthat was missed earlier due to an interruption).

Solutions over conventional systems for controlling tuners during livetransmission of content are described herein. The systems and methodsdescribed herein achieve benefits over conventional systems byoptimizing the retrieval of missed content in the context of limitedtuner capacity. Specifically, the systems and methods relate toselectively caching particular content in order to selectively releasetuners when the particular content is transmitted in the future suchthat the released tuners may receive other content while the particularcontent is played back from the cache. In an illustrated example, acontent presentation system (e.g., a set-top box) receives, with atuner, a transmission of content that includes both media content andadvertisements. The system caches the advertisements, each of which isassociated with a unique identifier. The system then determines whetheran interruption during the transmission resulted in part of the contentbeing missed. If the system determines some content has been missed, thesystem detects an upcoming advertisement in the transmission of contentand determines whether the upcoming advertisement is cached (e.g., bychecking local storage for an advertisement with a matching uniqueidentifier as the upcoming advertisement). If the upcoming advertisementis cached, the system plays back the cached version of the upcomingadvertisement, thereby releasing a tuner that would have been used toreceive the advertisement in the transmission. This tuner may then beused by the system to retrieve or receive the content that was missedearlier in the transmission. Thus, the system enables a more optimalusage of transmission-receiving tuners by caching content that may berepeated in the transmission so the repeated content does not requireredundant usage of the tuners.

Notably, this system may be used for any content that is repeatedlytransmitted and/or displayed. For example, while advertisements are oneexample of the same content being repeatedly transmitted and/ordisplayed, the system and methods disclosed herein may also achieve thedesired effects with other repeatedly transmitted and/or displayedcontent such as program intros, show credits, sports replays, previousprogram summaries, and/or any content in a program that is repeatedlytransmitted and/or displayed. Likewise, although the term “tuner” isused throughout this disclosure it should be noted that the embodimentsdisclosed herein may additionally or alternatively feature a tunerlesssystem, in which the capacity of a system resource and/or otherconstraint restricts the transmission of a suitable amount of separatecontent streams. For example, the systems and methods herein could beused to compensate for a limited amount of user accounts for aparticular content provider, which prevents a user from receivingmultiple streams simultaneously. In such a scenario, the “tuner” may bereplaced with a “user account” and/or the other constraining resource inthe embodiments below.

Several techniques are described herein for using tuners to retrievemissed content by caching advertisements. The content presentationsystem may cache an advertisement by storing, in local storage, a copyof the advertisement and an associated unique identifier. In someembodiments, the system may perform the caching of the advertisementduring playback of the advertisement. In some embodiments, the contentpresentation system may use a storage-tracking data structure to trackadvertisements that have been cached. For example, after locally storingthe copy of the advertisement and its associated unique identifier, thecontent presentation system may update, in the storage-tracking datastructure, a field that corresponds to the associated unique identifier.For example, the field may be a Boolean value that is initialized as“False” and is set to “True” if the advertisement associated with theunique identifier is cached. The system may then check whether anupcoming advertisement has been cached by performing a lookup functionon the data structure using the unique identifier of the upcomingadvertisement. For example, if the data structure returns a Booleanvalue of “True” to a lookup of the unique identifier of an upcomingadvertisement, the system may determine that the upcoming advertisementhas been cached and may therefore be retrieved from local storage. Insome embodiments, the content presentation system may determine that anadvertisement is upcoming in the transmission at a particular time orduring a particular time period by detecting a signal in thetransmission, where the signal includes an associated unique identifierof the advertisement upcoming in the transmission.

In some embodiments, the content presentation system may receive anadvertisement schedule that identifies respective time periods for eachadvertisement in the transmission of content. For example, theadvertisement schedule may be provided by a content provider. In someembodiments, the system may use the advertisement schedule to cache anadvertisement before it has been played back in the transmission ofcontent. For example, the system may select an advertisement (and anassociated unique identifier) listed in the advertisement schedule and,prior to playback of the selected advertisement, retrieve theadvertisement from a content server and store it locally. In otherembodiments, the system may cache the advertisements as they are beingplayed back in the transmission of content, as discussed above. Theadvertisement schedule may also be used by the system to determine whenan advertisement is upcoming in the transmission of content. Forexample, the system may determine that an upcoming time period in thetransmission of content matches a respective time period of a respectiveadvertisement in the advertisement schedule, and therefore that thetransmission of content will play back the respective advertisement inthe upcoming time period. The system may then check whether therespective advertisement has been cached, e.g., by checking astorage-tracking data structure, as discussed above. If theadvertisement is cached, the system will, at the upcoming time period,play back the cached version of the advertisement, thereby freeing uptuner capacity to retrieve content that may have been missed earlier.

Thus, the systems and methods described herein solve the problem oftuners with limited capacity not being able to simultaneously receivelive transmission of content and retrieve missed content that was notsuccessfully transmitted initially due to an interruption. Thetechniques described herein play back cached versions of advertisementsto decrease tuner load during live transmission of content and increasethe capacity of the tuners to retrieve content that was missed duringthe transmission.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative diagram of the content presentationsystem's operation during live transmission of content, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a diagram of illustrative user equipment, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a diagram of an illustrative media system, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for usingtuners to retrieve missed content during a live transmission, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for cachingadvertisements in a live transmission of content, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative diagram of the content presentationsystem's operation during live transmission of content, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. In FIG. 1, transmission source102 transmits stream 110 to content presentation system 104. Forexample, transmission source 102 may be an antenna of a broadcastcontent provider. Stream 110 includes multiple segments: contentsegments A (112), B (114), and C (116), and an advertisement segment(118). Content segments may be delineated by a content provider, forexample, based on scenes, plotline, time frames (e.g., the contentsegments may be continuous, adjacent 5-minute intervals), presence ofparticular characters or actors, or any other suitable means ofsegmenting media content. In some scenarios, stream 110 may includefewer segments than shown; in other scenarios, stream 110 may includeadditional segments (of content and/or advertising). An advertisementsegment may be adjacent to another advertisement segment within thestream, or advertisement segments may be separated from otheradvertisement segments by one or more content segments. Further, each ofsegments 112, 114, 116, and 118 may have associated metadata. Forexample, advertising segment 118 may be associated with a uniqueidentifier, as discussed above. The unique identifier may be analphanumeric string, a hexadecimal value, or any other suitable value.

Content presentation system 104 receives transmitted stream 110 fromtransmission source 102. Content presentation system 104 is depicted inFIG. 1 as a set-top box, but may be any other suitable device forreceiving and presenting transmitted content, such as the user devicesof FIGS. 2-3 described below. Content presentation system 104 may havetuners configured to receive digital transmission signals or otherresource constraints that affect reception of digital transmissionsignals. Content presentation system 104 may include storage 106 eitherinternally or externally. For example, content presentation system 104may be a set-top box with built-in local storage. In another example,content presentation system 104 may be a set-top box with a physicallyseparate storage unit that is connected to the set-top box with a cable.Cached advertisement 108, corresponding to advertisement segment 118from stream 110, may be stored in storage 106. In some embodiments,multiple cached advertisements corresponding to multiple advertisementsegments in stream 110 are stored in storage 106.

Window 120 of FIG. 1 shows a playback sequence of stream 110 by contentpresentation system 104. Segments 122, 124, 126, and 128 in the playbacksequence correspond, respectively, to segments 112, 114, 116, and 118 oftransmitted stream 110. As shown, segment 124 may have been“missed”—i.e., not properly received—by content presentation system 104.For example, a power outage affecting content presentation system 104may have interrupted the system's reception of stream 110. In someembodiments, the interruption of the transmission of content may occurat transmission source 102. For example, signal loss or rain fade attransmission source 102 may have degraded, in quality, a portion ofstream 110 during transmission, resulting in content presentation system104 not receiving that portion of the stream, in full or in part. Themissed portion of the stream may include multiple and/or partialsegments. In some embodiments, even if only part of a segment wasmissed, the entire content segment will be flagged by the system forretrieval. It should be understood that a “part” of a segment may bedetermined by playback time (e.g., the part of the segment from playbackposition 1 minute and 5 seconds to playback position 1 minute and 30seconds); media type (e.g., an audio part of content vs. avisual/display part); or any other appropriate separation of multimediacontent. Content presentation system 104 may retrieve missed segment 124while continuing to present the following segments in the stream, forexample to allow a viewer to watch the missed content at a later time.In another scenario, the user may have programmed content presentationsystem 104 to record the live transmission for viewing at a later time.Thus, even if a segment of the content is missed during livetransmission, the viewer may be able to view the full content (includingthe missed segment) if the segment is retrieved before the user viewsthe recording.

During the playback sequence in window 120, content presentation system104 may detect upcoming advertisement segment 128 at, e.g., a timeperiod of 17 minutes into playback. As discussed in further detail belowregarding FIG. 5, content presentation system 104 may determine there isan upcoming advertisement segment by using an advertisement schedule. Insome embodiments, content presentation system 104 may determine there isan upcoming advertisement segment by detecting a signal in thetransmission, where the signal may indicate, for example, the uniqueidentifier associated with the upcoming advertisement. Upon detectingupcoming advertisement segment 128, content presentation system 104checks whether there is a corresponding advertisement cached in storage106. After determining that corresponding cached advertisement 108 iscached in storage 106, content presentation system 104 may retrieve thecached advertisement and play it back, thereby releasing one or moretuners to retrieve missed content segment 124.

Users may access content and the applications from one or more of theirmedia devices, i.e., user equipment. FIG. 2 shows generalizedembodiments of an illustrative device, i.e., a device in contentpresentation system 104. For example, content presentation system 104may include a smartphone device, a tablet, or a remote control, such asillustrative user equipment 200. In another example, contentpresentation system 104 may be a user equipment system 201. Userequipment system 201 may include a set-top box 216. Set-top box 216 maybe communicatively connected to speaker 214 and display 212. In someembodiments, display 212 may be a television display or a computerdisplay. In some embodiments, set-top box 216 may be communicativelyconnected to user interface input 210. In some embodiments, userinterface input 210 may be a remote control device. Set-top box 216 mayinclude one or more circuit boards. In some embodiments, the circuitboards may include control circuitry and storage (e.g., RAM, ROM, HardDisk, Removable Disk, etc.). In some embodiments, circuit boards mayinclude an input/output path. More specific implementations of userequipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 3. Eachone of user equipment devices 200 and user equipment system 201 mayreceive content and data via input/output (hereinafter “I/O”) path 202.I/O path 202 may provide content (e.g., broadcast programming, on-demandprogramming, Internet content, content available over a local areanetwork (LAN) or wide area network (WAN), and/or other content) and datato control circuitry 204 and storage 208. Control circuitry 204 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 202. I/O path 202 may connect control circuitry 204 toone or more communications paths (described below). I/O functions may beprovided by one or more of these communications paths but are shown as asingle path in FIG. 2 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 204 should be understood to mean circuitry based onone or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signalprocessors, programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays(FPGAs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and mayinclude a multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core,or any suitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,control circuitry may be distributed across multiple separate units, forexample, multiple of the same type of processing units (e.g., two IntelCore i7 processors) or multiple different processors (e.g., an IntelCore i5 processor and an Intel Core i7 processor). In some embodiments,control circuitry 204 executes instructions for an application stored inmemory (e.g., storage 208). Specifically, control circuitry 204 may beinstructed by the application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the application may provide instructions tocontrol circuitry 204 to generate the media guidance displays. In someimplementations, any action performed by control circuitry 204 may bebased on instructions received from the application.

In client server-based embodiments, control circuitry 204 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a contentrecommendation application server (e.g., server 304) or other networksor servers. The instructions for carrying out the above-mentionedfunctionality may be stored on the content recommendation applicationserver. Communications circuitry may include a cable modem, anintegrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, a digital subscriberline (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card, or a wireless modemfor communications with other equipment, or any other suitablecommunications circuitry. Such communications may involve the Internetor any other suitable communications networks or paths. In addition,communications circuitry may include circuitry that enables peer-to-peercommunication of user equipment devices, or communication of userequipment devices in locations remote from each other (described in moredetail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 208 thatis part of control circuitry 204. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,non-transitory computer readable medium, or any other suitable fixed orremovable storage devices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage208 may be used to store various types of content, media guidance data,and instructions for executing content access applications. Nonvolatilememory may also be used (e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and otherinstructions).

Control circuitry 204 may include video-generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 204 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 200. Circuitry 204 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video-generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch-and-recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 208 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 200, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 208.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 204 using user inputinterface 210. User input interface 210 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touchscreen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 212 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of each one ofuser equipment device 200 and user equipment system 201. For example,display 212 may be a touchscreen or touch-sensitive display. In suchcircumstances, user input interface 210 may be integrated with orcombined with display 212. A video card or graphics card may generatethe output to the display 212. The video card may offer variousfunctions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics,MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiplemonitors. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry204. Speakers 214 may be provided as integrated with other elements ofeach one of user equipment device 200 and user equipment system 201 ormay be stand-alone units. The audio component of videos and othercontent displayed on display 212 may be played through speakers 214. Insome embodiments, the audio may be distributed to a receiver (notshown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers 214.

The content presentation system may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, the content presentation system may be astand-alone application wholly implemented on each one of user equipmentdevice 200 and user equipment system 201. In such an approach,instructions for the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage208), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 204 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 208 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 204 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 210. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 210 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the applications are client-server basedapplications. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented on eachone of user equipment device 200 and user equipment system 201 isretrieved on-demand by issuing requests to a server remote to each oneof user equipment device 200 and user equipment system 201. In oneexample of a client-server based content presentation system, controlcircuitry 204 runs a web browser that interprets web pages provided by aremote server (e.g., server 304). For example, the remote server maystore the instructions for the application in a storage device (e.g.,314 or storage 106 in FIG. 1). The remote server may process the storedinstructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 310) and generatethe displays discussed above and below. The client device may receivethe displays generated by the remote server and may display the contentof the displays locally on equipment device 200. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 200.Equipment device 200 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 210 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 200 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 210.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 200 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the applications are downloaded and interpreted orotherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (run by controlcircuitry 204). In some embodiments, the applications may be encoded inthe ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received by control circuitry204 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by a user agent runningon control circuitry 204. For example, the applications may be an EBIFapplication. In some embodiments, the content delivery application maybe defined by a series of JAVA-based files that are received and run bya local virtual machine or other suitable middleware executed by controlcircuitry 204. In some of such embodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2or other digital media encoding schemes), the applications may be, forexample, encoded and transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with theMPEG audio and video packets of a program.

FIG. 3 is a diagram of an illustrative media system, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. User equipment devices 308 and 309(which may be, for example, part of content presentation system 104) maybe coupled to communication network 306. Communication network 306 maybe one or more networks including the Internet, a mobile phone network,mobile voice or data network (e.g., a 4G or LTE network), cable network,public switched telephone network, or other types of communicationsnetwork or combinations of communications networks. Paths (e.g.,depicted as arrows connecting the respective devices to communicationnetwork 306) may separately or together include one or morecommunications paths, such as a satellite path, a fiber-optic path, acable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g., IPTV),free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wireless signals),or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Communications with the client devices may beprovided by one or more of these communications paths but are shown as asingle path in FIG. 3 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths as well as other short-range, point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communication network 306.

System 300 includes media content source 302 (i.e., transmission source102 in FIG. 1) and server 304. Communications with the media contentsource 302 and server 304 may be exchanged over one or morecommunications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 3 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, there may be more than one ofeach of media content source 302 and server 304, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 3 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. If desired, mediacontent source 302 and server 304 may be integrated as one source device(e.g., transmission source 102).

In some embodiments, the server 304 may include control circuitry 310and storage 314 (e.g., RAM, ROM, Hard Disk, Removable Disk, etc.). Theserver 304 may also include an input/output path 312. I/O path 312 mayprovide device information, or other data, over a local area network(LAN) or wide area network (WAN), and/or other content and data tocontrol circuitry 310, which includes processing circuitry, and storage314 (i.e., storage 106 in FIG. 1). Control circuitry 310 may be used tosend and receive commands, requests, and other suitable data using I/Opath 312. I/O path 312 may connect control circuitry 204 (andspecifically processing circuitry) to one or more communications paths.

Control circuitry 310 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as one or more microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signalprocessors, programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays(FPGAs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and mayinclude a multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core,or any suitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,control circuitry 310 may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 310 executesinstructions for an emulation system application stored in memory (e.g.,storage 314).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 314 thatis part of control circuitry 310. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,solid state devices, quantum storage devices, or any other suitablefixed or removable storage devices, and/or any combination of the same.Nonvolatile memory may also be used (e.g., to launch a boot-up routineand other instructions).

Server 304 may retrieve guidance data from media content source 302,process the data as will be described in detail below, and forward thedata to the client devices 308 and 309. Media content source 302 mayinclude one or more types of content distribution equipment including atelevision distribution facility, cable system headend, satellitedistribution facility, programming sources (e.g., televisionbroadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediate distributionfacilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demand media servers,and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned by the NationalBroadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by the AmericanBroadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by the Home BoxOffice, Inc. Media content source 302 may be the originator of content(e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) or may not bethe originator of content (e.g., an on-demand content provider, anInternet provider of content of broadcast programs for downloading,etc.). Media content source 302 may include cable sources, satelliteproviders, on-demand providers, Internet providers, over-the-top contentproviders, or other providers of content. Media content source 302 mayalso include a remote media server used to store different types ofcontent (including video content selected by a user), in a locationremote from any of the client devices. Systems and methods for remotestorage of content and providing remotely stored content to userequipment are discussed in greater detail in connection with Ellis etal., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, which is herebyincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media content source 302 may also provide media guidance data that canbe used to create carousels and queries as described herein. Mediaguidance data may be provided to the client devices using any suitableapproach. Program schedule data and other guidance data may be providedto the client devices on a television channel sideband, using an in-banddigital signal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any othersuitable data transmission technique.

Client devices may operate in a cloud computing environment to accesscloud services. In a cloud computing environment, various types ofcomputing services for content sharing, storage or distribution (e.g.,video sharing sites or social networking sites) are provided by acollection of network-accessible computing and storage resources,referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloud can include acollection of server computing devices (such as, e.g., server 304),which may be located centrally or at distributed locations, that providecloud-based services to various types of users and devices connected viaa network such as the Internet via communication network 306. In suchembodiments, user equipment devices may operate in a peer-to-peer mannerwithout communicating with a central server.

The systems and devices described in FIGS. 2 and 3 enable not only theillustrative embodiment of FIG. 1, but also the execution of processesdescribed in FIGS. 4-5. It should be noted that each step of processesdescribed in FIGS. 4-5 is performed by the previously-described controlcircuitry (e.g., in a manner instructed to control circuitry 204 or 310by a content presentation system). It should be noted that theembodiments of FIGS. 4-5 can be combined with any other embodiment inthis description and are not limited to the devices or controlcomponents used to illustrate the processes.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for usingtuners to retrieve missed content during a live transmission, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. A main loop ofprocess 400 begins at step 402. At step 402, a content presentationsystem receives, with a tuner, e.g., using control circuitry 310, atransmission of content comprising media content and a plurality ofadvertisements. As discussed above, the content may include one or morecontent segments, and each segment may have associated metadata. Forexample, each advertisement in the content may be associated with aunique identifier.

At step 404, the content presentation system caches (e.g., using controlcircuitry 310) a portion of the plurality of advertisements in thetransmission of content. For example, the content presentation systemmay cache an advertisement by storing (e.g., in storage 106 or 314) acopy of the advertisement and an associated unique identifier. In someembodiments, the content presentation system may perform the caching ofthe advertisement during playback of the advertisement. That is, uponreceiving the advertisement in a live transmission stream, the contentpresentation system may both present the advertisement in its playbackof the live transmission stream and store a copy of the advertisement.In some embodiments, the content presentation system may employ a datastructure to keep track of cached advertisements. For example, asdiscussed above, the content presentation system may use astorage-tracking data structure with Boolean values associated withunique identifiers of advertisements, where performing a lookup on thestorage-tracking data structure for an advertisement by its uniqueidentifier may return “True” or “False” based on whether theadvertisement is cached. In another example, the content presentationsystem may use a hash table (or hash map) data structure to keep trackof the cached advertisements. For example, a unique identifier of anadvertisement may not be mapped (i.e., may return a null value for alookup) if the advertisement has not been cached; further, a uniqueidentifier of an advertisement may be mapped to a memory address (e.g.,a hexadecimal value) if the advertisement is cached, where the memoryaddress indicates where the advertisement is stored and may beretrieved.

At step 406, the content presentation system determines (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) whether an interruption during the transmissionresulted in a missed portion of the content. For example, the contentpresentation system may analyze metadata of the successfully receivedcontent segments, where the metadata may provide indexing or sequencinginformation for each content segment. For example, if two receivedcontent segments have index field values 0×400 and 0×408, the indexfields of adjacent content segments differ by 4, and a content segmentwith index field value 0×404 was not received, the content presentationsystem may determine that the content segment was missed and musttherefore be retrieved. In some embodiments, if an interruption occursat the transmission source (i.e., transmission source 102 of FIG. 1),the transmission source may transmit a signal that indicates missedcontent and enables the content presentation system to determine that aportion of the content has been missed.

Process 400 continues to step 408 if the content presentation systemdetermines that an interruption during the transmission resulted in amissed portion of the content. If the content presentation system doesnot determine that an interruption during the transmission resulted in amissed portion of the content, process 400 continues at step 402. Forexample, the content presentation system may continue to receive one ormore transmissions of content and periodically check whether a portionof the content was missed due to an interruption.

At step 408, the content presentation system determines (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) that an advertisement is upcoming in thetransmission at a time period. For example, the content presentationsystem may detect a signal in the transmission of content indicating anassociated unique identifier and playback time of an upcomingadvertisement. In some embodiments, the content presentation system mayplay back the transmitted content a particular amount of time afterreceiving it. For example, the content presentation system may receive alive content transmission, process the transmission to prepare it forplayback presentation over the next, e.g., 1500 milliseconds, and thenplay back the content, resulting in a delay between reception andplayback of the content by the content presentation system. Theprocessing of a content segment in the transmission may includedetermining (e.g., from metadata) whether the segment includesadvertising content and, if so, determining that there this an upcomingadvertisement.

At step 410, the content presentation system determines (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) whether the upcoming advertisement is cached. Asdiscussed above, the content presentation system may use a datastructure (i.e., in storage 106/314) to track cached advertisements.Process 400 continues to step 412 if the content presentation systemdetermines the upcoming advertisement is cached. Further, the contentpresentation system may, upon determining the upcoming advertisement iscached, retrieve the upcoming advertisement from storage. If the contentpresentation system does not determine the upcoming advertisement iscached, process 400 continues at step 408. In some embodiments, if thecontent presentation system does not determine the upcomingadvertisement is cached, the content presentation system may cache theupcoming advertisement for later usage.

At step 412, the content presentation system plays back (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) the cached upcoming advertisement at the timeperiod. In some embodiments, the content presentation system plays backthe cached advertisement by generating it for presentation to a viewer.In some embodiments, as discussed above, the transmission of content isbeing recorded, rather than consumed live by a viewer, and the contentpresentation system may “play back” the cached advertisement in thetransmission being recorded by inserting the cached advertisement intothe recording.

At step 414, the content presentation system uses the tuner (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) during the time period to retrieve the missedportion of the content. For example, a tuner fully engaged in receivingthe content transmission may, once released, use its newly availablebandwidth to send a signal to the transmission source indicating missedcontent, or receive missed content being transmitted to the system. Asdiscussed above, a “tuner” may be any system resource and/or otherconstraint that restricts the transmission of a suitable amount ofstreaming content.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for cachingadvertisements in a live transmission of content, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. Process 500 may, in someembodiments, begin after step 402 of FIG. 4. At step 502, a contentpresentation system receives (e.g., using control circuitry 310) anadvertisement schedule in the transmission of content. The advertisementschedule may indicate respective time periods associated with respectiveadvertisements in the transmission. For example, the advertisementschedule may provide a playback start timepoint and a playback endtimepoint for each advertisement in the transmission. The advertisementschedule may have additional information, such as the associated uniqueidentifier for each advertisement, a duration of each advertisement,etc. The advertisement schedule may be provided by a content provider(e.g., via transmission source 102).

At step 504, the content presentation system selects (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) an advertisement in the advertisement schedule.For example, the content presentation system may iterate through each ofthe advertisements listed in the schedule and select each advertisementonce during the iteration. Each advertisement may be listed in theschedule by its associated unique identifier, and selecting theadvertisement may involve saving the associated unique identifier into atemporary variable. At step 506, prior to playback of the selectedadvertisement in the transmission of content, the content presentationsystem retrieves (e.g., using control circuitry 310) the selectedadvertisement, e.g., from a content server such as server 304 in FIG. 3.For example, the content presentation system may send a request to thecontent server including the unique identifier associated with theselected advertisement (e.g., saved in the temporary variable), and thecontent server may, in response, provide the selected advertisement.

At step 508, the content presentation system stores (e.g., using controlcircuitry 310) in local storage (e.g., storage 106) the retrievedselected advertisement and an associated unique identifier. As describedabove, in addition to storing the advertisement, the contentpresentation system may update a data structure that tracks whichadvertisements have been cached. In some embodiments, the contentpresentation system may repeat steps 504, 506, and 508 until each of theadvertisements in the advertisement schedule has been selected,retrieved, and stored. In some embodiments, some of the advertisementsin the advertisement schedule may be duplicates of each other. Thus, thecontent presentation system may check whether the selected advertisementhas already been cached (e.g., as described above in FIG. 4) beforeperforming steps 506 and 508.

At step 510, the content presentation system determines (e.g., usingcontrol circuitry 310) whether an upcoming time period matches arespective time period of a respective advertisement in theadvertisement schedule. For example, the content presentation system maydetermine the upcoming time period to be, for example, the next 2minutes of playback in the transmission of content—e.g., ranging fromplayback timepoint 4 m:30 s to 6 m:30 s. The content presentation systemmay compare this upcoming time period with each respective advertisementtime period listed in the advertisement schedule to determine whetherthere is a match. For example, the content presentation system maydetermine that the upcoming time period matches a respectiveadvertisement time period if the time periods overlap. In someembodiments, the respective advertisement time period may comprise oneplayback timepoint (e.g., a start timepoint), and the contentpresentation system may determine a match if the one playback time pointfalls within the upcoming time period of, e.g., 4 m:30 s to 6 m:30 s.

Process 500 continues to step 410 of FIG. 4 if the content presentationsystem determines that the upcoming time period matches a respectivetime period of a respective advertisement in the advertisement schedule.If the content presentation system does not determine a match, process500 continues at step 510. For example, the content presentation systemmay repeat step 510 until it determines a match.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Furthermore, itshould be noted that the features and limitations described in any oneembodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowchartsor examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any otherembodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, or done inparallel. In addition, the systems and methods described herein may beperformed in real time. It should also be noted, the systems and/ormethods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems and/or methods.

1. A method for using tuners to retrieve missed content, the methodcomprising: receiving, with a tuner, a transmission of content, whereinthe content comprises media content and a plurality of advertisements,wherein each of the plurality of advertisements is associated with aunique identifier; caching a portion of the plurality of advertisementsin the transmission of content; determining whether an interruptionduring the transmission resulted in a missed portion of the content; inresponse to determining that the interruption during the transmissionresulted in the missed portion of the content: determining that anadvertisement is upcoming in the transmission at a time period;determining whether the upcoming advertisement is cached; and inresponse to determining that the upcoming advertisement is cached:playing back the cached upcoming advertisement at the time period; andusing the tuner during the time period to retrieve the missed portion ofthe content. 2.-30. (canceled)